Mission: 01- Lost and Found.Deck City: The Database June 12, 3756.09:00

It is a brand new day for the children of Project Bluesky, and a wonderous day indeed. Today is the day that they graduate from their solo training, and their visual programming for their digital bodies is altered, granting them their uniforms.

The children start the day in the laptop that has served as their home for the last four to six months. After a brief ceremony, their laptops are connected via Hotwire to "The Database", the home for the digitized selves. The kids themselves feel a brief period of vertigo, as they- And their roomfile- Is pulled through the hotwire and deposited into the database. As they reboot into their new home, they find themselves clad in their new uniform, along with a note- Their first day of school begins in an half hour. Report to Database://12:ClassroomC/PBS.exe in a half hour.

As the children step out of their rooms for the first time, they find themselves in long hallways marked clearly with the access paths. Knowledge of the way is part training, part instinctual. The hallways themselves are carpeted and wallpapered beautifully, and comfortably lit. There is a definite feeling of 'home' here, along with the persistent dull tingly-ness of being digitized- Something the kids may or may not have felt since their conversion.

The classroom itself is a small, detailed affair with a blueboard, along with their new teacher AI, Mr. McSweeney. Like just about every AI they've met to date, McSweeny represents as a sleepy looking human man, with a white button up shirt, a black tie and slacks, and a vaguely sleepy look on his face. Each child has their 'desk' already labeled for them and prepared with all the nessessities of the day. However, there's still a half hour before class begins, still plenty of time for the children to explore along the way, mingle amongst themselves, or get into trouble.

Sam wakes up groggily that morning, so excited that he was hardly able to keep himself in sleep mode last night. Finally, after two whole months, he's finished his training and gets to meet the other kids in the project! He can't help but grin through the entire ceremony, and though it didn't even seem possible, his smile gets even wider when he finally receives his uniform. A mixture of forest and hunter green, it's exactly how he pictured it from the start.

Reading the note, he decides he can't wait a whole thirty minutes to see what their new home's like. Charging out of the room, Sam begins one of his favorite pastimes, something he hasn't been able to indulge in in quite some time: exploring. He begins wandering up and down the halls, eager to look around through the entire filesystem, poking around everywhere that doesn't seem like somewhere he'd get in trouble for poking into. It's all so new and so interesting, he can barely take it all in. Of course, pretty soon he'll have to go to class, but he'll be there in plenty of time for certain!

The young girl had already been awake for three hours, a small, semi-transparent orb in each hand as she sat on the edge of her bed, dangling her legs. For an adult, this kind of simulated world would be alien, uncomfortable perhaps... hardly something you'd enjoy spending your days and nights in. But as a child, and an entirely unique form of AI-meld to boot, this place was home.

The mere presence of the orbs made her uneasy, as if someone was tickling the palms of her hand. It was a big improvement, just a month or two ago she would've just let them fall to the floor, to be rid of the itching wrongness of being touched by something...

She looked around the room where she had spent nearly six months resting in between sessions of... of school. She figured it was school, sort of, because she was learning things. Anton, her older brother, had told her a lot about school. He'd always mentioned how there would be other children, though.

She slid off the bed and put the two shimmering orbs back into the drawer where she kept them. Above the drawer was a mirror, and she looked at herself for a little while, thinking how she'd never once needed to brush her hair after the people at BlueSky had taken her here. She guessed that was ok, but she kind of missed having her mother brush it every morning. Her long, charcoal-grey hair remained as it had always been, straight and thick, down to her waist. She took a crimson-red band from the top of the drawer and tied the ends of her long hair together. After looking at herself in the mirror(mentally trying to relax a bit), she stepped into the middle of the room and said out in a voice almost a whisper, "I'm ready."

The transition made her flinch, but it was over quickly, and as she opened her eyes again, she saw the uniform she had been given. It was predominately black, her gloves, neckguard, lower abdomen and boots were very dark "Green..." she whispered as she moved her arms a bit, feeling a shiver run down her spin. She had grown accustomed to the suit she'd used when training, but even though this was essentially the same... She was very happy to have gotten it, but just moving around felt awkward, claustrophobic... she felt herself tensing up more and more as her anxiety surfaced...

"One... two..." she closed her eyes again, counting out loud, "three... four..." she breathed deeply as she once more opened her firey red eyes, taking a few steps towards the door, "five."

---

Exiting the room, Alexis found herself in the corridor leading towards their classroom... and to the rooms of her new friends. She felt a tinge of anticipation, a strange feeling in the pit of her stomach, and with a somewhat uneasy look on her face she began to walk towards the classroom.

An active girl in her previous life, she'd been going just a little bit stir-crazy confined to one room, however much her day might be filled with educational activities. As a result, Emily practically bounced out of her room, orienting herself quickly and setting out to explore the boundaries of her new environment.

Enzo was looking forward to interacting with the others, finally. He'd spent a lot of time in that laptop, and it would be good not to have to communicate through an interface between the physical world and the digital one. He came out of sleep mode on schedule, and looked around his room file briefly. He'd decorated it largely with his own work, digital pottery and some amateur two dimensional art that he'd made in PhotoPaintPlus. He was still figuring out how to customize their tags, so unfortunately they were all headed by 6 point font declaring them to be variations on "EnzoL_###.ppp", but for now he was happy with them. Not so much with the light sculpture next to his bed... It was his first time ever working with DirectionZ driven images, and somehow the interface felt strange to him.

He shoved aside those concerns and took a look at himself in the mirror. He was still a thirteen year old boy with black hair and green eyes, olive skin and freckles. He would always be thirteen years old, have dark hair green eyes and olive skin, until the day he died, if that was still possible. The sense of permanency might have intimidated an adult, but Enzo found it comforting. What had changed was his appearance. He was wearing a D-52 Wunderkind suit, with two simple, solid colors: The major color was a non-reflective, car primer gray and the secondary was a faded blue, like old worn out jeans. They weren't particularly flattering together, and weren't particularly eye catching. Truth be told, Enzo didn't mind that idea. It had been explained to him why he ought to aim for that, and he'd totally agreed. Since he was perpetually prepared to go anywhere he needed to go, no morning routine that he needed to actively or even consciously perform, he just left the room, and headed off towards the class... Which is where he found Sam. It had been months since they'd talked, and he was a welcome sight.

Day began much like it had for the past four months. Lauren awoke in her bed, blinking away the cobwebs in her head and wondering if she was still dreaming. She lay still for a bit, listening to the perfect clock in her head and feeling the dull tingling sensation that meant that none of this was real...and that none of it was a dream. Almost four months. Ten million, five hundred eighteen thousand, two hundred twenty six seconds since her dream came true.

Ten million, five hundred eighteen thousand, two hundred twenty six seconds, give or take, since she had last seen her mother. She loved her, of course, and missed her more than she had thought she would. She had sent her a few messages to let her known she was okay, that everything was fine, and how excited she was, but she hadn't allowed her to respond. Not until this was done, until it was too late for Mom to stop her. This was too important to risk.

Ten million, five hundred eighteen thousand, two hundred thirty eight seconds. It seemed somehow unfair that she didn't have a number for her dad.

And then it came to her in a rush -- graduation day! She jumped out of bed and punched the air in excitement. She fixed her short brown pigtails with light pink ribbons and put on her Sunday best -- which was just the training uniform, yet again. The ceremony was brief, which was just as well. She hadn't been paying much attention anyway.

Team training, and back to school. She certainly hoped the new school would be better than her old one, and briefly wondered how it was getting along without her. Maybe she'd have a chance to go back and fix things again later. If only the principal could see her now...

A sudden sense of vertigo shook her out of her reverie as the "near-instantaneous hotwire data transfer..."thingy went to work. When her senses cleared, she eagerly bounced over to the mirror to see her new uniform. White gloves, white boots, and the bodysuit the same pink as her ribbons. Perfect. She enjoyed a small secret smile: they knew it was her favorite color, but none of them knew why. She had worn a dress of exactly that color to the party that changed her life, where an overheard conversation had brought her...home.

Home! Where she would finally be able to make a difference! Where people wouldn't be stopping her from doing the right thing, where maybe, just maybe, they'd punish the villains instead of the heroes! With a happy laugh, she twirled out into a hallway that already seemed as familiar as the home she grew up in.

"Shadow Drive, Go!" she whispered, as she lightly pushed herself forwards with one foot and went frictionless. It had taken her many hard lessons to learn how to do that without losing control, and several more to learn how to disengage it without falling on her face. It hadn't been that bad: she'd been through worse landings. She took in her surroundings as she glided through the hall at a walking pace, silent as a ghost.

Sam turns, stopping in his tracks in surprise. It's been a long time since he's heard another kid, after all. He looks to who it was that called his name, and after a moment or two he grins, recognizing who it is. "Enzo? You're here too? Neat!" He runs over, a barely-contained ball of energy as he talks to his friend. "Isn't this place great? I didn't know you were going to be here. Is anyone else here from the orphanage? How long have you been here? I thought the training was going to take forever, but I just graduated today! I'm an Archer!"

Alex heard the commotion of children moving around in the corridor, of barely constrained excitement, cheers, woops. She heard two boys talking, and for a moment she wanted to turn back to her room. The laptop had been an interesting place in itself, and maybe she wasn't done with her training after all, maybe she wasn't cut out to...

She stopped in her tracks, red eyes wide as she suddenly found herself standing right in front of the two boys she had heard talking. She stood still for a split second, the quickly turned and began to walk at a rather brisk pace back towards her room. There were other children here! She hadn't stopped to consider it, but this was the first time she'd seen anyone remotely close to her own age since...

She'd just... just sit down a bit more, on the bed. Maybe train her grip, put the setting on steel... that would help her relax, calm down...

Lauren glides through the hallway, her XRL8 system holding up nicely despite it being a "trial package" for her digital body, instead of the real thing for her real body. Up ahead, she can see two boys with the similar uniforms as her own, gloves, boots and 'underpants' of one color, and a bodysuit of another. They seem to have some familiarity with one another, but this is the first time she's seen either one of them.

Coming from another direction, Emily passes a branching directory-hall, where she can see another set of rooms. Going the way she was, she can also see the two boys, and the approaching pink-and-white figure, and she's quickly gaining on a girl in a black and green suit from behind.

Black boots with metallic gray details led up to a metallic gray brief and exaggerated breastplate with a high, stiff collar. Black sleeves set off metallic gray bracers that left his hands free. "That's me," Darren said, inspecting himself in the mirror. "Fuckin' right." He turned a few different ways to admire his outfit. "Tough guy."

The boy himself was nine years old and perhaps a little short for his age, but his bulky uniform made him appear more imposing. He had chocolate-brown skin and black hair in tight corn rows on his head, and carried himself with...a swagger was probably the most appropriate word. He was a Wunderkind, and he was in control. He gave it a couple weeks at most before he was in charge of the whole thing.

"They're gonna have to make room for me up top," Darren Lander pronounced, giving his reflection a confident nod. He spun to the side and gave the controller for his video game system (or at least the digital representation of one with which he'd been provided) a solid kick, sending it spinning into a wall and breaking into pieces. It was always cleaned up and there was always a new one when he did that, so he didn't see a reason not to do it as often as possible. It wasn't really breaking stuff, Darren figured, because nothing there was real: not the posters of wrestlers on his wall, not the furniture, not movies on the shelves, not the mirror. Nothing. So it didn't matter. He kicked the mirror, too, for good measure, but it didn't break.

He left the room, then. He knew there would be other kids now, and he knew it was time to show them who was boss. He just had to find where they all were.

Silvia couldn't contain the grin on her face. Finally, after all her hard work and training, she was finally ready. She was a little nervous, if she was perfectly honest with herself, but most of all she was excited. The eleven year old beamed at herself in the mirror as she looked over her uniform: the vibrant red and yellows she chose were perfectly eye catching, just like they were supposed to be. Her curly ponytail bounced as she twirled in front of the mirror, but she stopped as soon as she reached the front again. Silvie paused and her brown eyes narrowed at the sight of freckles against her tan skin. That was the one thing she hoped they would get rid of.

Oh well, she'd try and fix that later. It was time to go! She rushed out of the room, eager to meet the other children, and saw a boy in black and silver. She stopped to wave at him, and, with a smile on her face, said, "Hey there!"

Last edited by NebulaQueen on Mon Jul 13, 2009 6:41 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Darren saw her quickly. An older girl, bigger than Darren. Probably thought she was better than him, too; that's why she was smiling. Probably thought she could get above him, on top. He'd make sure that didn't happen.

Darren walked up to her and stopped, arms folded: The aggressive stance, as always. He wasn't gonna let some bitch think she could get one up on him.

"You one of the other Wunderkind kids? We gotta go to that PBS shit for this class we gotta do." He tried to show leadership without making her think he was going to be her friend, and without making her think he liked the classes they had to take before they could actually get out and fight.

Whilst Darren was busy telling Silvie in a dominating, masculine fashion that they needed to head to the classroom, Alexis rounded the corner from that direction. The girl seemed mildly distressed, eyes rather widely open and her gloved hands quivering slightly as she gripped and ungripped empty air. She noticed the pair and swerved around them , intent on continuing her march in the wrong direction.

Last edited by Christian on Tue Jul 14, 2009 12:48 pm, edited 1 time in total.

The other boy may have thought that his stance made him look tough. He may have thought that it made him look like the top dog around this place. However, Silvie didn't see anybody strong or anybody who was like a leader. All she saw was some little brat.

"I know that," she said, her voice flat and unimpressed. The girl narrowed her eyes and crossed her arms back at him, and asked, "What's your problem, anyways? All I did was say hi-oh!"

She caught sight of the other girl and jogged towards her; Darren was nothing more than an afterthought now, and all that was left of him in Silvie's mind was a fading annoyance. Another smile was plastered on her face, and her tone friendly once more, she said, "Hey, wait up!"

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Enzo had fully intended to reply, but before he could, the scene with Silvie and Darren had taken place. Oh, good. Darren was here too. Enzo hated him, but couldn't seem to keep himself composed enough to deal with the boy, despite being older. To make matters worse, he didn't have his easy out until they all got bodies. He was gonna have to take classes with that kid... and he was kind of defenseless at the moment. Still, that girl didn't seem bothered by him. Maybe he'd focus on her because of that? He hoped so.

He spoke quietly to Sam.

"Maybe we should get to the class room... before he notices."

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It took a little while for Alex to realize that the girl had called out to her. She spun around on one heel as she landed her next step, turning to face Silvie with a look of some nervosity on her face. Her long hair fluttered once before settled and if it wasn't for the disturbingly tense, red stare the girl was giving Silvie, she would have looked on the edge of crying. She stopped gripping in the air, however, and instead folded her hands behind her, pressing them tightly against her back. Her mouth was pursed slightly, as if she was chewing on her lower lip.

Last edited by Christian on Tue Jul 14, 2009 12:49 pm, edited 1 time in total.

As Silvie took a few steps back, Alexis seemed to calm down a bit, and she sunk down, having stood on the balls of her feet. She seemed somewhat unsure what to do but finally nodded, taking a very careful step towards the other girl. She looked to be maybe eight or nine, rather small and scrawny for her age, and the suit she wore was dark and sleek, the pattern of a Recon/Stealth/Infiltrate model.

Despite having agreed (or at least, looked as if she did) to follow Silvie, she didn't move anymore towards the other girl, instead remaining where she was, although by now she'd stopped chewing her lip, instead looking rather emotionless but for a faint tint of red on her cheeks and her continuously staring eyes.

Last edited by Christian on Tue Jul 14, 2009 12:49 pm, edited 1 time in total.

About that time, another girl passed by Silvie and Alexis, smiling at the two of them. Her suit was black with purple highlights, and her hair was chopped short, and blond. Oddly, she wore glasses, despite the fact that they were completely unnessessary with the kids digitized bodies. "Don't worry about the little guy, there. He's just puffing up to make himself look bigger, like a little bird."

She began walking again, waving to the rest of the group. "By the way, my name's Janet. I'm gonna be your support."

Like the others, Emily looked much as she had in life. Still somewhat short (at least compared to adults), not having hit any big growth spurts, and with short brown hair tied back in a ponytail. Her hair, she had discovered, was the only mutable part of her appearance save for clothing, but she'd kept it the way it had last been after a bit of experimentation. Overly long hair was only going to get in the way. A uniform of dark blue on green completed the look, settled on some time back after deliberation.

Glancing back at what's drawn Enzo's attention, Sam scowls and nods. He watches what that other girl does with him, smiling at how easily he gets brushed off, but turns back to Enzo. "He's here too? Ugh. Yeah, let's hurry up, I don't wanna deal with him. Why'd they take him, anyway? I didn't think they'd let jerks in here."

Looking around, he sees that even more kids are starting to show up here. "Hey, maybe we could say hi to some of the other people here too. I don't think they'll let us talk much in class. Most of the people here look nice too, maybe we could warn them about Darren an' stuff, before he starts pushin' people here around too much."

Darren bristled at being ignored in favor of Alexis, but if he was gonna be the leader, he couldn't get into a fight with anybody - at least on the first day, he figured. So he recovered his composure, squared his shoulders, and walked in the direction of the classroom, making sure to add some swagger so the light would catch his cool silver breastplate.

He did notice Enzo and Sam, but they started moving faster around that time and he wasn't about to run to catch up - nothing made Darren look smaller than when he moved quickly. He had only known Sam for a little while before the start of the program, and thought he was kind of a spaz, but Sam never made himself nearly as easy a target for Darren's teasing as some other kids that Darren could care to name did. Enzo was better - he always struck Darren as maybe a little weak-willed, but he wasn't from the streets like Darren was so that was excusable. He was older than Darren by several years, so at the orphanage they'd been kept out of each other's way by circumstances and social realities more than anything else. It occurred to Darren that having Enzo and Sam around wouldn't be all that bad - they'd probably be good soldiers for him when they put him in charge.

(EDIT: First I had the wrong character name, then Shini told me there's no way my character could possibly know Christian's.)

Alexis seemed to tense out completely as Silvie began to walk back towards the classroom and she began to follow after the older-looking girl, keeping a respectable distance. Quite noticably, she didn't seem to be making any sounds as she moved, but the programming would surely instruct a curious person that this was because of the added noise-filtration functions of the suit created to ensure that a R/S/I model would remain fairly undetected unless he or she decided to go on a rampage.

As the two met Janet, Alexis seemed to take to the background again, listening without much of a reaction to the joke about Darren, instead looking just a bit curious. However, when Silvie turned and asked her name, Alexis tensed up again.

But after a second or so she spoke in a very soft, almost whispery voice, "Alexis."

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"Alexis?" Janet smiled brightly, stopping and turning to look her teammate in the eye. "Look, there's no need to be shy, or scared, or anything. We're all in the same boat here, see? We've all even got the same funky clothes on. We're all living in a computer, we're all going to be andriods...So don't worry, okay? Just be yourself!"

With that, she turned, and began to walk again. "We're all gonna be GOOD FRIENDS, right? Even you, Tough Guy!"

Lauren smiled and disengaged the XLR8 system, coming to a stop next to Emily.

"I'm Lauren! And yeah, it's something special for Pikemen. They said I'd have it in the real world so I need to practice with it here. It's a little harder than it looks." Lauren started bouncing on her toes in excitement. "It's really cool, though! I've been having so much fun, I can't wait to see what's next! Did you get anything neat?"

Alexis returned her look and gave another nod. She didn't seem much inclined to lighten up, but perhaps she was simply one of those people who had trouble expressing themselves, or she wasn't one to waste words. "ok." she said again, showing no real signs of changing, but following after Janet and Silvie, releasing the grip behind her and running a lock of her hair through her fingers for a bit, "I'm not scared..." she added as an afterthought.

"Tough guy?" Darren echoed with a grin, as he thought about how tough he'd be in his new body. "That's me, all right. Tre-bu-chet," he pronounced the unfamiliar word carefully. He stopped walking and focused his attention on an empty space of wall like it was a gallery of bad guys, holding his arms up like he already had rocket launchers on his shoulders. "Bam! Bam! All them explode. The ones that didn't run away when they saw us, anyway." With his aggression focused on theoretical "bad guys", he probably seemed far less malevolent - if Sam and Enzo were nearby, they'd remember that that was how he was kept contained at the orphanage: As long as you were sitting with Darren and you were playing a cooperative video game (he seemed to prefer the type of video game where he was already Heavy Ranged anyway) or were empathizing with the same wrestler or following the same movie badass, he saw you as a co-conspirator (though he never really seemed to get all the way to friend with anybody on more than a temporary basis) and he could even be agreeable so long as you didn't get in his way.

"That is so COOL! This is the greatest thing ever!" Lauren put an arm around Emily's shoulders, and made a broad sweeping gesture with her other hand "Look out, world! Project Bluesky is coming, and some of us can fly!

(OOC: Is anybody else having a horribly difficult time keeping track of who's where? Janet was able to address Darren if she called out to him, which puts Darren near Alexis and back near Silvie, even though Silvie jogged away from him. I'm...so confused...)

Before they could get very far back to the classroom, the boy causing the ruckus was appearantly now firing imaginary weapons at imaginary enemies...

Alexis stopped in her tracks only a few feet from Darren, looking at first somewhat puzzled, then a look of mingled intimidation and fascination crept up on her face as she watched him down his targets quite skillfully.

"What are you doing?" she asked rather coldly, looking at the spot where he'd been "firing", "I don't see anyone over there..."

(It is a corridor-ish place, I have no real idea where I stand, but I suppose the kids move around a bit, with maybe Sam and Enzo closest to the classroom, Lauren and Emily further back and Alexis, Darren, Silvie and Janet somewhere in the middle... perhaps?)

(That sounds about right. There's basically three interaction groups right now, and the only thing that's clear is that Enzo and Sam are closer to the classrom than everyone else. Whether it's Lauren and Emily or the other four that's next in line is up for debate, but I like CC's reckoning.)

"I guess I should get up."

Max was lying in bed after he and his entire room had been pulled through some crazy digital wormhole and deposited into an all-new, still all-virtual location. He was adjusting the position, size, and brightness of a fake window he had installed on the wall opposite the door to his room. He never could get the imitation sunlight to look quite right. This whole "digital existance" thing had taken a while to get used to, and he still wasn't entirely comfortable with it. He wondered if it would be different when he finally got out into the real world, into his android body. Would the warmth of the sun still feel the same on his face? Would his body feel like his body, and not some kind of borrowed virtual "shell"?

Would he still get that same rush from getting behind the wheel? Max thought he had come to terms with these questions over the past six months of training, but being one step closer to the real world brought them up again. They had told him pilot training was more intense than the rest of the classes, and now that the solo training was over, he was definitely ready to meet someone other than himself and the trainer AI. He knew he was excited to be out of training. He heard the voices of other children outisde his room, and he could sense the anticipation of meeting his new "brothers and sisters," but these feelings didn't feel quite the same as before. The beating of a heart, the tensing of muscles... it just wasn't there like it was before. It all felt somehow... fake. Of course, that's a consequence of living a virtual life in a virtual world, but it was a little unsettling, and something that Max often thought about in his downtime.

He wondered what his sister was up to.

"Well, lying here thinking about it isn't going to change anything."

Max thrust himself out of bed, standing up quickly and smacking his cheeks, announcing to the world "All right! Let's do this!"

On his way to his door, Max caught a glimpse of himself in the full-length mirror next to his virtual closet. "Oh right, the new uniform!" He paused to consider his new look. He liked the idea of combining the camo of the light ranged class with the dark colors of the pilot class. His self-titled "nighttime urban camo" definitely looked cool, with its monocrhomatic blacks and grays and specs of white, but seeing it actually on him, he wondered how effective it would be as concealment. Especially combined with his dark, metallic blue gloves, boots, and... briefs. He wasn't entirely comfortable how everyone kept referring to them as underwear, but he wasn't sure how else to refer to them, either. What's with superheroes wearing their underwear on the outside, anyway? At least he was still himself. Slightly on the short side of average height, short, dark brown hair styled with a little gel. It was a vanity that he defended by saying he didn't like the feeling of wind whipping his hair around. This was, of course, a lie. Generally satisfied with himself, Max decided to head out the door and meet his teammates.

Except they were all already ahead of him. The hall his room was attached to was empty, and he could hear the other kids in the adjacent directory, leading down to the classroom. It struck him as kind of odd that he knew where the classroom was already, despite this being his first time in The Databse. Another unique aspect of life as a digital being. Looking up and down the Hall, he wondered if there was an "outside" to this Database place. An open area with grass and trees and sun where he could really stretch his wings. Suddenly, he really wanted to test out his flight capability. But in such an enclosed space... should he? "Why the Hell not?" he said to himself. It was a virtual space, he couldn't do any serious damage. He'd probably have to get a running start, though.

He wondered if he would be able to take that corner mid-flight...

Wait, no, I'm getting ahead of myself.

Max decides it would be a better idea to first see how flight feels compared to the training program. Before doing anything too crazy, he decides to try a brief sustained hover, ideally without bumping into the ceiling.

(All the kids are in a corridor. Swede's assessment is more or less correct. Darren was addressed with an exclaimation point, which in English denounces volume or yelling- He was being shouted to. You'll find that in non-combat situations, my definition of where, exactly, everyone is switches to "What is convenient for the story/Character interaction", and not what is set in stone)

Max gets a slight hover going, enough that he's not singing the carpet with the additional boosters in his feet, and not bumping his head on the ceiling. Very controllable, very much what he's used to via training.

"Good... good." It was just as it had been in training. Max suspected it would be, but it's always best to check your equipment before trying something crazy. He lands and begins concocting a plan to fly around that corner.

Should he bank right and kick off the adjacent wall, pull a horizontal 130° and kick off the opposite corner, or should he just try for a midair drift and avoid the walls altogether? No, there's not enough room for that. He'll definitely have to make use of the walls. That first idea sounds good.

Max works it out in his head... Yea... running jump-start, boosters on, get close to the wall, bank right, pull up, and kill boot boosters so I can run along the wall a bit, kick off the corner with boot boosters towards the hall with the rest of the gang, straighten out... oh, I'm probably going to need to figure out a landing. Let's see... how 'bout, pull up, brace against the ceiling, cut all boosters and use the leftover forward momentum to straighten out? Yea, that'll work. It's not too far to the floor from the ceiling, and even if it were I'm a freaking virtual android anyway.

Seems like a pretty good morning warm-up exercise. Max takes position like a runner at the beginning of a race...

Max jets past the rest of his team, shouting a quick hello to Emily as he passes. He turns the next corner, and disengaging his flight, enters the classroom.

One by one, the rest shuffle in, finding their desks. As they sit, the teacher AI begins to speak. "Good morning, Children. Welcome to your first day of School. I'm your teacher, Mr. McSweeney. My function is to teach you everything a child learns during their school years. You may wonder why they do not simply download the knowledge into you directly. The answer is simple: You are children first and foremost. All children go to school, even the very specially gifted, like yourselves. You do, however, have quite a few advantages over normal children. For example, any child could quickly figure out that nine times nine is eighty-one. However, if I were to say, "what is the square root of 23", it would only take you...About now to figure out that it is 4.795831523312719. Each of you is a computer in and of your own. But you are still children. You must still learn."

He glances over at the first desk in the first row, Janet. He nods, before speaking again. "Why don't we go around the room, and tell one another a bit about ourselves."

Janet stands up, turning to face the rest. "Well, most of you heard it in the hall, but my name is Janet McClellan. My favorite color is purple, but you could probably guess from my uniform. Umm...Oh, my serial is JADM013, and I was brought into the program six months ago. I like reading, even more now that I can read a thousand words a second, and writing...Oh, I also found that I really like Planet of Battle, now that I'm actually in the game."

She thinks, and sits down again, and McSweeney nods, looking to the next in line.

(Post in whatever order you wish, and that will be the order they randomly sit in for class.)

Darren was sitting in the back of the class, so he kept his mouth shut. He'd go last, or near to last - that way, he would both be obviously not eager to follow the AI's directions and also would stick out in the rest of the group's heads. Of course, he figured he stood out anyway; the person in room next darkest of skin tone was Enzo, he noticed, and the difference in color between Enzo and Darren was still considerable.

Up next was Alexis, and the small girl seemed somewhat distressed at the prospect of introducing herself to the rest. Finally she slids off her chair and turns to look at the others, face emotionless except for her staring red eyes and two small dots of red on her cheeks. She opens her mouth to speak, then give a sound somewhat like the formation of a vacuum, a quick inhalation and then a little pop. She looks even more bothered before she then closes her eyes, seemingly counting off something.

"I...I'm Alexis Clifford. I... I like green, and drawing, and playing the piano, and I'm eleven years old..." she looked at the teacher, realizing she'd forgotten something, "And... my serial-number is ALCL004." she sits down hurriedly, wincing slightly before turning to look at the next child in line.